Destiny Home Page Customization

Attended a RRLC workshop this morning by Angela Boccuzzi-Reichert and Karen Mitchell on hacking the Destiny homepage with an iFrame. Destiny is very limited in the functionality of their home page, in fact, every Destiny home page that I have ever seen makes me think of 90's web design. Using the iFrame, allows librarians to take advantage of any new tech fad. (And that's important, school librarians need to be comfortable with the newest technologies...librarians should be the tech cornerstone of the library community.

Angela and Karen are currently using Blogger as the iFrame content. Of course, you could use any site, but they chose this service as it is stable and easy to use. When using Blogger, adding multiple tabs/pages gives greater design flexibility. See Example with tabs/pages:

Blogger iFrame Insertion Steps

1. While logged in as administrator, edit the Introductory text.
2. Enter the following code in body (Where URL = The URL of the site you want to insert.):
   <center><iframe width="100%" frameborder="0" src="http://yourblog.blogspot.com" height="900"></iframe>
3. Save

Another tip that Angela and Karen had was to make sure each link opens in a new window. This helps students have an 'anchor', somewhere they can always go back to and re-orient. To do this, enter the following code in the HTML head of your chosen webpage. "<base target='blank'/>"

Great presentation guys! Thanks.

RESOURCES:

Monroe BOCES 2 Follet Resources: http://teachersites.schoolworld.com/webpages/sls/library.cfm
Angela and Karen's iFrame Directions: http://m2bddh.blogspot.com/
5 Things Every School Library Website Should Have: http://www.librarygirl.net/2011/08/5-things-every-school-library-website.html